


some assembly required

by attheborder



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Being Crowley (Good Omens), Deus Ex Deliveryman, First Time, Idiots in Love, M/M, Moving In Together, Post-Canon, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Strong Aziraphale (Good Omens), The Joy Of Real Estate, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: In which Aziraphale and Crowley receive a special delivery, and proceed to make good use of it.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 98
Kudos: 632
Collections: Break in Case of Emergency: Fluff and Love, Hot Omens, To The World - Good Omens Anniversary Exchange, Top Aziraphale Recs





	some assembly required

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obstinatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/gifts).



“Again?” 

“Yes, Mr. Crowley.”

“By how much?” 

“I’m really not at liberty to—” 

“ _ How. Much.”  _

“... Fifty thousand pounds over your previous bid, Mr. Crowley.” 

Crowley claps a hand over the receiver and emits a stream of foul language so noxious it cracks one of the panes in the picture window in front of his desk. He snaps his finger to repair the glass, takes a deep breath, and uncovers the phone. 

“I’ll do fifty better.” 

“Fifty, sir? On top of—” 

“On top of the previous fifty, yes.” 

“Perhaps a smaller bid to start with would be more prudent—” 

This is going to be the death of him. Well, the discorporation of him. And the worst part is he’s not sure he’d even mind it, really. If he can’t come out on top of this simple, idiotic quest, he’d be worthy of nothing less than to be back downstairs, plugging away at paperwork for the rest of his immortal existence. 

A month ago, there had been seventeen bidders for the property. Today, it’s down to three. Crowley has plans to be the last one standing. He will not abide by any competition; he will snatch victory out of the slavering jaws of his enemies.

“No. I said  _ fifty,  _ Ms. Szylagi, and make it snappy.” 

“...Very well, Mr. Crowley. I’ll submit the bid on your behalf, and be back in touch when I can.” 

“Good,” Crowley says, and slams the phone down without another world, teeth curled in a frustrated snarl. 

His laptop is in front of him on the desk, browser helpfully open to the the same tab it’s lingered on for weeks now. Three bedrooms, one master bath, one guest bath. Office, library, solarium; massive east-facing bay windows in the parlor and an up-to-date yet quaint kitchen complete with island and breakfast nook. 

The name is Paradise House, which Crowley can admit is a bit on the fucking nose, but it’s the sort of thing that Aziraphale, with his angel-wing mugs and bloody Bible woodcuts, would go all swoony over. 

Because at the end of the day, this is for Aziraphale. Buying this property,  _ this property in fucking particular,  _ is the first step in Crowley’s ten-year plan. He needs to have it in his back pocket for the next three phases, divided each into five sub-phases, to occur. If he can’t pull this very basic groundwork off, then he might as well give up the whole thing for a bad job. 

He opens a new tab, blows off steam for a good half hour by claiming every varation on the estate agent’s legal name on social media sites, and filling the profiles with ads for various pornographic services. Serves her right for not using the profiles herself, like a proper self-marketing millennial. It’s a miracle she’s got any customers at all, really. 

But this demonic pastime doesn’t bring the sort of comfort he’d been hoping it would. He still feels wretchedly frustrated, filled with impotent rage that resists any outlet. 

So he does what he always does, when he’s feeling like this. He calls the angel. 

“It’s me,” he says, darkly, because the telephone has existed for over a century and he’s had the angel’s direct line for nearly that long and has still never managed to come up with a better opener.

“Oh. Hullo, Crowley.”

Immediately, every nerve in Crowley’s body is alight. The angel sounds…  _ upset.  _

He leaps out of his seat, all thoughts of auctions and corporate sabotage forgotten in a single instant. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong.” 

“Wrong?” Aziraphale gives a bone-dry little laugh, utterly humorless. “Nothing at all, dear boy. Now, you called me— is there something you need?” 

“Need? No, no, I just…” He trails off, trying to wrench his mind back to where it had been when he dialed. He’d just wanted to chat, really. Maybe make plans for later in the week; find some film festival to pop into, a concert in the park. 

But actually, this could be precisely what he needs. Whatever issue is afflicting Aziraphale could very effectively distract him until his moment of ultimate triumph. 

“Look, are you sure you’re feeling alright? I could come over, dig out a few bottles, listen to you kvetch for a bit?” 

But Aziraphale sighs. “No, I think you’d best not,” he says. “Nothing you need to be concerned about. A trifle, really. I’m sure you’re quite busy. And I have plenty to do here.” 

“Nnh. Got it. Talk to you later, angel.” 

Right, then. Not unusual, in and of itself. Aziraphale, incorrigible introvert that he is, is often not in the mood to have company. Crowley is used to it, though that doesn’t mean he likes it. 

But there  _ is  _ something wrong, and Crowley knows it. 

***

The agent comes back two days later with more bad news. There’s only one bidder left, and apparently they are even more intransigent than Crowley. He didn’t know that was possible for a human. 

“Mr. Crowley, for this kind of money, I could set you up at the most darling property near Goodwood, two extra bedrooms and a hot tub out back, I really don’t see why you wouldn’t want to get a better value for your money, if you’re prepared to spend so much of it—” 

“I don’t want more bedrooms. I don’t want a sodding  _ hot tub.  _ I want  _ this  _ cottage, and by the moldering, macerating maw of Mammon I will  _ have this fucking cottage.”  _

His voice goes a bit demonic there at the end, and the agent is scared into silence. Crowley takes the opportunity to stare at the tantalizing photos on his laptop again. 

The place is perfect, is the thing. It’s just secluded enough, with the nearest neighbor at a comfortable remove of a half-mile. The village closest isn’t too small or too large; it’s got a growing reputation for the relative strength of its dining scene, and its main market square includes multiple antique shops and a large specialist garden centre. 

The agent clears her throat. “Alright, Mr. Crowley, if you’d like to put in another bid you can certainly try, but I really cannot make any promises.” 

Crowley considers, with intent, the concept of cannonballing down the phone line at lightspeed and emerging on the other end, contorting his corporation into something monstrous, scaring the poor little agent once and for all into an early retirement on a remote coast. 

There’s no panache in that sort of thing, though, he’s always thought. No finesse whatsoever. It’s a move his former coworkers would have found absolutely brilliant, and for that reason he can dismiss it out of hand. 

No. He’s going to have to take drastic measures. Drastic— but stylish. A little espionage is what he needs. Not only will it solve his problem, but it’ll cheer him up while he’s at it. 

The next night, he’s suiting up. He puts on his most comfortable shirt, selects trousers with a bit more stretch than usual, and dons a pair of incredibly expensive trainers, so utterly black and sleek they seem to soak up all the light in a six-foot radius. To top it all off, he adds his special jacket, which projects an atmosphere of authority, perfect for infiltration. 

He’s got it all planned out. A dowager alley-cat near the estate company’s headquarters owes him a favor. She’ll make sure the security guard near the back entrance is distracted long enough for Crowley to hustle up the maintenance ladder and onto the roof of the building. 

He’ll enter through the ductwork, crawl along the ceiling until he’s right above the office of one Ms. Helen Szylagi, and then rappel down using a high-tensile wire to reach her computer. 

Once he hacks in and gains access to the internal system of the company, he can manually delete the other bidder from the system entirely, or perhaps even change their latest bid to show up as slightly below his. From there, it’s a fait accompli. The cottage will be his, and each successive phase of the plan can fall into place like dominoes. 

***

For reasons he doesn’t quite care to examine, Crowley decides to go a bit out of his way beforehand to make a surprise visit to the bookshop. He justifies it by reasoning that he’s about to embark on a dangerous mission, and should something go wrong he’d like his last memories of freedom be something relatively pleasant. 

The locked door clicks open for him as he approaches. It’s done that since the late 1970s,[1] but Crowley still gets a thrill every time. 

“Aziraphale?” he calls. 

“Back here,” is the response, but it sounds somehow choked, almost as if he were in the middle of a good cry. Crowley’s stomach goes into free-fall as he practically leaps the yards to the back room in a single bound. 

Aziraphale is sitting on one side of the sofa, his Bakelite telephone cradled in his lap and his face in his hands. 

Crowley trembles at the threshold, fingers balled up at his sides to avoid them being drawn like magnets to the angel’s, a pointless and embarrassing instinct. 

“Oh, Crowley, I really shouldn’t tell you,” Aziraphale pouts, blatantly preparing to spill it all. “But it’s the most awful thing.” 

“I’m listening, angel,” says Crowley. “Go on.” 

Aziraphale rearranges himself on the sofa, working himself up into a tetchy vigor of the likes that Crowley hasn’t seen since the unveiling of that awful Wilde statue outside Charing Cross. It’s quite impressive to watch. Crowley comes over and sits beside him, already attuned to listen and sympathize for however long the angel needs him to.

“The absolute nerve of some people,” Aziraphale fumes. “When one gives every indication that one is prepared to spend absolutely any amount of money necessary to make a purchase, it can be taken as read by other interested parties that the polite thing to do is take their  _ interest  _ elsewhere.” 

“This about a book, then?” Crowley asks. “One of your white whale first editions?” 

“Oh, it’s not a book,” says Aziraphale sharply. “If it were a book, do you think I’d not have ways of getting around impertinent competitors? My relationships with auction houses and collectors prevent this sort of thing.” 

Crowley is more than a bit confused. “Then— what is it?” 

Aziraphale sighs. He leans over and places the phone back on the side table, and picks up a sheaf of papers, begins to shuffle through them sadly. “Unfortunately, this is... a real estate transaction, and I don’t have nearly as much experience in this area. I haven’t bought property since 1795, and things have changed quite a bit since then.” 

“...Can I see?” 

Aziraphale hesitates, for just a moment, before handing over the pages.

Crowley’s sunglasses slip inexorably down his nose as he looks through them. They’ve been printed out in exquisite high-gloss color—since when did Aziraphale own a printer?— and every single picture and line of copy on them is painfully, wretchedly familiar. 

“Are you telling me,” he says slowly, not looking Aziraphale in the eye, “that you recently put in a one point twelve million pound bid on this Paradise House place, and are upset that someone’s outdone you just now, and you might not come out on top?” 

Aziraphale moans. “Yes! And I don’t know  _ who  _ this _ awful  _ other bidder is, and  _ why  _ they simply must be  _ so  _ persistent. There are plenty of other lovely properties in the area, the agent’s told me so herself! Repeatedly!” 

A choice faces Crowley, staring at him dead-on, like a particularly randy bull pawing at the ground, preparing to gore him at any second if he doesn’t get out of the way. 

How much to give away? He can demur, express his condolences, then slink home to retract his last bid and leave Aziraphale a none-the-wiser victor. Or— he can let his own plan collapse like an accordion, tesseracting swiftly and bringing the later stages into plain view, far quicker than he’d prepared for. 

Really, it’s the same question he’s been asking and answering for the last thousand years of an Arrangement he thought surely wouldn’t last out the eleventh century.  _ What will bring Aziraphale the least amount of distress, while simultaneously minimizing damage to my own dignity? _

Crowley can’t help himself now. He reaches out, a light touch to Aziraphale’s arm, presaging the forthcoming confession. “Angel, I’ve gotta— I need to tell you something.” 

“Oh. What is it?” says Aziraphale, looking a bit peeved, as though he was expecting Crowley to sit and listen to him whinge for a bit longer. Honestly, if this was any other night, any other problem, he would’ve. 

“The other bidder. The one that won’t give up. That’s me.” 

Aziraphale’s elastic, expressive face undergoes a succession of metamorphoses; shock, confusion, and finally settles to the characteristic petulant disbelief that Aziraphale wears as often as a favorite bow-tie. “ _ You?  _ But— why? _ ” _

And that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it. Crowley just shrugs, makes a noise like  _ mmmnngh. _

Aziraphale purses his lips. “I would’ve thought a place like this isn’t quite your  _ style,  _ my dear. It’s a bit….” He trails off, glancing from the printouts to Crowley’s eyes and waving a hand. 

Another noncommittal full-body shrug-and-grunt, because Crowley’s brain is still going a mile a minute trying to figure out what to say.

_ Yeah, no shit, it’s not my style, not the style you know me for, because it’s not supposed to be mine, it’s supposed to be ours. Yours and mine. But if that doesn’t even occur to you, if that isn’t something you’d let yourself want, even now—  _

“Well,” sighs Aziraphale, “I suppose I ought to let you win out. I do have the bookshop, after all, and you just have that dreary flat of yours. You deserve a bit of an upgrade…” 

_ No, no, that is not how this is going to go.  _ “Iwasactuallythinkingwecouldshareit,” Crowley says, altogether too fast, and immediately wants to punch himself in the face. 

But there’s a beat, and then Aziraphale claps his hands together, instantly cheered. “Oh— really? That’s such a  _ lovely  _ idea, my dear, you’ve no idea how delighted I am that you suggested it. It’d really be just the ticket.” 

Crowley is exerting a great deal of muscular force to prevent his smile from growing too broad. “Yeah. Yeah, it’d be nice, right?” 

Aziraphale takes the printouts of the listing from where they’ve fallen on the sofa cushions between them, and leafs through them with a smile. 

“You can keep your flat, and I’ll keep the shop for now, of course—” he begins, at the same time Crowley blurts out, “It doesn’t need to be full-time, or anything, we can just—” 

They both fall silent, looking at each other. Crowley is the first to crack. “Well,” he says, completely honestly, “that’s a real weight off my back. I was on my way to break into the estate agent’s office and delete your bid, actually.” 

“Well, there’ll be none of that now,” says Aziraphale. “In fact— oh, we ought to celebrate! I have a lovely Yquem I’ve been saving…” 

Crowley feels like he’s just run a marathon. He slumps back on the couch as Aziraphale flits off to the wine rack, pushing his glasses up so he can rub at his eyes with his palms. They’re about to go in on Paradise House  _ together— _ it really hasn’t hit him yet. He wonders when it will. 

  
  


***

Ms. Szylagi doesn’t know how lucky she is, Crowley reflects, as she hands Aziraphale the keys outside Paradise Cottage and, with a face like a child who has narrowly escaped a visit to the headmaster’s office, scurries off back down the driveway to the safety of her silver Ford Fiesta. 

They walk up the garden path, and Aziraphale does the honor of unlocking the heavy oak door of the cottage.

“After you,” he says, and Crowley enters.

The interior is gleaming in its potentiality; perfectly-polished hardwood floors and those lovely bay windows, letting in more light than Crowley thinks a cottage this dainty should rightfully be able to fit inside. 

Aziraphale walks out from behind Crowley, out into the center of the room to take it all in. His hand flies to his heart as his eyes fall upon each feature in turn. 

Crowley wants to paint him. He calls up his past history with visual art,[2] reconsiders this desire, and instead snaps a few subtle and silent shots with his iPhone camera, for perusal later. 

“It’s just  _ wonderful,”  _ Aziraphale breathes. 

Crowley, privately, agrees enthusiastically, but instead of expressing this aloud affects a silent saunter around the first floor, following after Aziraphale as he flutters over the windows, the solid inbuilt bookshelves, the skirting, the brass doorknobs, the overhead lighting in the breakfast nook. 

They eventually land back in the wide and empty living room. “Shall we go into town?” Crowley asks. “See what’s good? 

Aziraphale shifts on his feet, and his hands come together to twist at each other, as he avoids Crowley’s gaze. Ah, here it comes. The bright white lightning has come and gone, taking its magic with it, and now the rumble of the storm threatens a cold, driving rain.

Crowley wonders if he should try and beat Aziraphale to it, if he should lay down some kind of disclaimer, like,  _ If you don’t want me here, I’ll go. If you want your space, I’ll give it to you.  _

He remembers how the Tower of Babel ended; he’d been nearby, eating some terrific date and licorice tarts. So he knows it’s better to put a stop to something like this before it gets built up too high, and crashes spectacularly in a conflagration of misunderstanding. 

“Listen,” he says, “before you say anything, I need tell you—” 

The doorbell rings.

_ Shit.  _

“Should I—?” Crowley asks, but Aziraphale is already striding over to the door and flinging it open. 

There’s a man on the step, in a cap and uniform, an all-over sort of brown. Something about him pings familiar to Crowley, but he can’t for the life of him figure out why. 

“Can I help you?” asks Aziraphale waspishly. Crowley doesn’t know why he’s so annoyed. Surely he ought to be relieved at this reprieve from Crowley’s stammering impotency. 

“Delivery for you, sir,” says the man, and the moment he speaks, Crowley remembers all at once where they’d met before. The bus-stop in Tadfield. He’d come to pick up the sword, and the rest of the Apocalyptic crap. 

“I haven’t ordered anything,” says Aziraphale. The belligerent politesse of his tone could’ve peeled potatoes. 

The man doesn’t seem to be carrying any parcels, only his well-loved clipboard, which he is now consulting closely. “It’s definitely for you. A.Z. Fell, isn’t it? This is Paradise House? Checked the sign outside. Lovely place, lovely place. Would love to settle down in a place like this with my lady one day, you’re a lucky couple.” 

Aziraphale blinks rapidly. “Er, ah, but it’s— we aren’t—” 

“Might be a gift, then, sir?” the man—Lesley, his nametag says— suggests brightly. 

Crowley shakes his head minutely when Aziraphale looks to him. 

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley grits his teeth, just a bit. It better fucking not be. If there’s someone  _ else _ out there, who thinks they can just  _ send _ Aziraphale  _ gifts, _ then they’ve got another thing coming, and that thing’s name is Crowley. 

“Only one way to find out, eh?” Lesley holds out the clipboard, and a pen. 

With considered caution, and one last glance to Crowley, Aziraphale takes the pen and signs his frilly little signature. 

“Thanks much. Just one moment, sir,” Lesley says. He takes the pen back, tucks the clipboard under his arm, and trots back to the truck that Crowley only now notices is parked up the drive, its hazards flashing. He swings the back open to reveal a large flat-packed parcel, nearly as tall as he is and seemingly a lot heavier. 

He struggles in getting it out, wrestling with it like a wild animal. 

“My dear fellow, let me give you a hand, please—” Aziraphale darts off down the drive, and lifts the other end of the parcel with fluid ease, as though it’s filled with nothing but air. 

“Much obliged,” says Lesley, looking so utterly flummoxed at Aziraphale’s disconcerting strength that Crowley can’t help but let out a satisfied laugh.  _ Show ‘em how it’s done, angel. _

They shuffle past Crowley in through the door and set the package down in the center of the empty front room. Then Lesley rises again, dusting off his uniform with practiced ease.

“Best of luck with the rest of it all,” he tells them, with a nod at the cottage’s empty interior. “It can be a real trial, moving house.”

“Think we’ll be fine,” Crowley says, wanting this encounter over already.

“Well, Maud and I, we just made the move to a bigger place, and it was more than a bit of a muddle,” Lesley says, not taking the hint, “but had to be done, had to be done, seeing as we’ve got a little one on the way…” 

“Oh, how  _ wonderful,”  _ Aziraphale beams, all angelic radiance. “Congratulations. I wish you and your dearest all the best.” 

“And the same to you, sir.” 

“Hnkk,” Crowley stammers, as Lesley tips his cap again, and is gone. 

The truck roars off down the driveway, and Aziraphale closes the door gently. Crowley looks down at the box. He gives it an investigative kick, and then shouts “ _ Ouch!”  _ and hops around on the other foot, his toe smarting and sending shockwaves of pain up into his leg. 

“Well,” says Aziraphale dryly, “I’ll tell you, I don’t think it’s a book.” 

“There’s got to be some mistake,” says Crowley, crouching now at the parcel, looking for some kind of clue as to its origins. “This must be meant for the sellers. I mean, the people who were here before.” 

“He did say it was for us, my dear.” 

Curiosity flares like a firework in Crowley, and he can’t resist asking, “D’you mind if I open it?” 

“I certainly can’t see the harm in it,” says Aziraphale. 

Crowley digs out the Bentley key from his pocket,[3] and uses the jagged edge of it to slice open the sides of the parcel. 

“It’s from IKEA,” says Crowley, with no small measure of incredulity. Atop a spread of white laminate boards and accoutrements is a plastic-enclosed packet of papers, with a line-drawing of a king-sized bedframe centered on the cover. It’s apparently called a  _ GEDDÖNWITIT.  _

“My goodness, it’s a bed!” Aziraphale exclaims. “You know, Crowley, I’ve never owned one.” 

“...You’ve never owned a bed,” Crowley says flatly, for want of literally anything else to say. 

“Well, you know I don’t sleep,” Aziraphale responds. 

“Oh, no, I had no idea,” Crowley drawls. He picks up one of the narrow wooden components from inside and spins it around in his hands like a baton, betting that if he gives his hands something to occupy themselves with, they won’t do something stupid, like shake visibly at the idea of Aziraphale’s chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of deep sleep, all soft sighs and slightly opened mouth. 

Aziraphale, meanwhile, has picked up the instructions and extracted them from their plastic prison.

“Shall we put it together, then?”

“...Right now?” 

“Do you have somewhere to be?” 

“No, but—” 

Aziraphale flips through the manual and tuts gently. “Oh, dear, this does look rather difficult. I’m sure you’re right, it must’ve been sent by mistake…” 

“Give me that,” growls Crowley, snatches the manual right out of the angel’s manicured fingers, and gets to work. 

***

Thirty minutes later, half of the floor of the unfurnished front room is covered in junk— washers, hex-keys, long flat metal thingies, short white wooden thingies. 

The benighted manual acts all innocent with its simple line drawings, but it’s anything but. In fact, it is so aggressively, powerfully mundane that it resists any and all of Crowley’s attempts at proper demonic cheating. He’ll close his eyes to think,  _ alright, this bit is going to fit the next time I try it,  _ and then it just fucking—  _ doesn’t.  _ Unbelievable. 

“Can I help?” Aziraphale keeps on asking. 

“Absolutely  _ not,  _ stop  _ hovering,  _ Aziraphale, I’ve  _ got this,”  _ Crowley growls. Because he  _ does  _ got this, if he  _ doesn’t  _ there will be  _ consequences,  _ far-reaching ones, he’ll set the rats on all of Sweden as revenge for this humiliation.

Peg after peg goes into hole after hole, bits of board fit together and then get pulled apart once he’s realized he’s done it back to front. Every so often he looks up at Aziraphale and the angel is watching him, with an impenetrable expression. He keeps doing little wiggles, readjusting himself as he meanders around the crime scene. Clearly antsy, probably bored out of his mind. 

Crowley can practically hear the mocking, pointed aspersions that might be running through the angel’s mind, even now, as Crowley fiddles with the screws and joins and components:  _ What a ridiculous excuse for a housemate. Can barely follow simple instructions. How could you think you could ever share a home with me? I have standards.  _

But Aziraphale has never owned a bed before, and by Someone, Crowley is going to give one to him. He’ll have his own bed shipped down and put up in one of the bedrooms Aziraphale doesn’t choose, and maybe— if he’s lucky— he’ll walk past Aziraphale’s door in the evenings and see the angel propped up in a mess of fluffy pillows, paging through some dusty tome, so engrossed he fails to notice Crowley at all.

_ Gosh, that’d be nice,  _ Crowley thinks, and, thus distracted, immediately hits his thumb hard with a hammer. 

***

“Is that it?” says Aziraphale.

Crowley stares down at his handiwork. He is sweaty, and exhausted, and a little delirious, drunk on accomplishment.

He’d actually gotten a commendation for IKEA, decades back. At the time, he’d thought it was right on the money, richly deserved as anything. The place was destined, thanks to his work, to become a dark nexus of chaos, a swirling morass of overwhelming choice, purpose-built to foment discord between roommates, newlyweds, and families. 

But this feeling of confidence swelling like a helium balloon in his chest, lifting him off his toes, is anything but hellish. Possibly exactly the opposite. It feels incredibly good. 

Well, fuck the Commendation Committee, they certainly can’t take back the damn thing now. 

“Guess so,” Crowley says. The perfectly-constructed bed stands monolithic in the middle of the front room. Though it looks a bit depressingly bare, like a gilt frame without a portrait inside. 

So he snaps his fingers and there’s a mattress on the bed, and sheets too, all in a soft, neutral heather-gray. 

Aziraphale hesitates for just a moment before walking over to the bed, lowering himself onto it, at first in a straight-backed sit and then swinging his legs over onto the mattress, pushing himself up into a lean against the headboard. 

Minutely, Crowley begins to back away. He does not want to do something stupid, not now, in this delicate moment, hanging suspended like the dust in the late-afternoon light beaming in through the windows. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale is saying now, patting the space on the bed beside him, “come here. You put this lovely thing together, you should get a chance to experience the fruits of your labor firsthand.” 

“Uhhhhhh. M’fine over here, angel.” 

Aziraphale hums. “I’ve never had a bed before.” 

“You said, yeah.” 

“I’m not sure,” Aziraphale says, very slowly, “that I know how to use one properly. You’re the expert.” 

“Ngh?” 

“How do you do it? Sleep, I mean. Do you have a favored… position? Arrangement?”

“Well. Yeah, suppose I do.” 

“Show me, won’t you?” 

Crowley has only actually seen Aziraphale cook once. He’d come over one night to complain about some office drama— the Disposables trying to unionize again, probably— and found Aziraphale at the oven, cracking eggs into a bowl and fretting over whether he should modify the shortbread recipe to include just a  _ touch  _ more vanilla. 

And that is what the angel looks like now, to Crowley’s eyes: unendingly nervous, cautiously anticipatory, and yet also crackling with preemptory pride, as though the outcome matters far less than the fact that he’s decided to do it at all. 

Crowley walks over to the bed. It resembles nothing so much as a speck of a swimming pool at the bottom of a very high dive. 

“Um, usually I’ll start on my back, like this,” he says, clambering onto the mattress, stretching his full length out atop the sheet, “but by the time I fall asleep I’ll be on my side, like this….” 

Aziraphale slides down the headboard, so that they’re facing each other on the bed now, lying on their sides, less than a foot apart. No pillows, so their heads are flat on the sheet. 

“Feel good? I mean, it might not, and that’s okay,” Crowley babbles. “The mattress is the same one I’ve got at home, I think. You might prefer something softer, there are a lot of options—” 

“It’s perfect,” says Aziraphale. He lays a hand out between them, smoothing over the sheet with gentle little movements. Crowley tracks them, tries to read them like cuneiform, and comes up empty. 

What is Aziraphale doing? He has to know what he’s doing, he’s not an  _ idiot,  _ this has been well established. Crowley’s clenching his legs together so tightly, as if that’s in actuality going to do anything at all to stop the arousal pooling between his thighs, his blood rioting off and away without official leave. 

“It really is,” Aziraphale is saying. “You think of everything, Crowley. Always thinking ahead. I could never do it, you know.”

“Nnh. Yeah. Whereas you just leap into things, don’t you?” 

“I do, don’t I? For example,” says Aziraphale, and reaches out in one smooth movement, to pluck Crowley’s shades from his face, and then lays his fingers on Crowley’s cheek, ever so softly. 

Crowley is obviously not going to push him away.  _ Obviously _ . But that doesn’t mean he’s not still roiling with mixed feelings about this whole business. 

He turns his head, just so, bringing his lips to Aziraphale’s palm. The angel’s hand— unmarred by any earlier hard labor, Crowley is glad he didn’t let him help— smells faintly of lavender soap and old paper. “Fucking hell, I had a  _ plan,”  _ moans Crowley, into that warm scent, his mouth against skin. “A ten year plan. I buy the cottage, then I  _ court  _ you, extensively— and here you are, mucking it up, with your eyes, and your face, and your bloody— everything—” 

Aziraphale’s hand draws away, in affront. “ _ Crowley _ — you were going to make me wait  _ ten years?”  _

He sounds righteously upset, but to Crowley’s comfort his touch returns, pressing with solidity to the curve of Crowley’s shoulder. Despite every nerve in his body screaming at him to sink into the sensation, give up on words completely, he will not stand for any slander of his plan. 

“I don’t— look, I thought that would’ve been  _ proper!”  _ he says. “I had to be  _ careful.  _ You want things done right, I  _ know  _ you. You love etiquette, formality—”

“You tremendous idiot,” says Aziraphale, and here his annoyance collapses, and his words tumble out infinitely fond. 

“Yeah, I know,” Crowley mumbles. “I just needed it to be _ right.”  _

“Oh, but it is. It always rather is.” 

“...Really?”

It all becomes a bit of a jumble, then. Crowley will forever put forth that he was the one who initiated, encouraged as he was, and Aziraphale will reliably counter that he’d been the one leading the vanguard thus far, so it would follow he took action here, too. [4]

Regardless, the fact of the matter is— they weren’t kissing, and now they most definitely are, starting out urgent and wild at first, then turning slow, luxurious and happy. 

It could’ve been seconds, minutes, or hours— Crowley really only regains awareness of time at the very moment one of Aziraphale’s hands finds its way down, cups at him through his jeans, begins a series of soft, intent motions that send sparks up his spine. 

Crowley tenses. Is he leaking out temptation through his pores? Has he lost control of himself, in the moment, dragged Aziraphale unwittingly down to a new level of debauchery?    
  
“What are you— angel, you don’t have to, really—” 

Aziraphale’s hand doesn’t still. “I may have never owned a bed,” he says, “but I know what one does atop them.” 

Crowley’s throat is suddenly very tight. Aziraphale kisses him again, so long and sweet and softly that his eyes are dry again by the time they part. 

“You want me,” Crowley says, unwilling to make it a question. 

But Aziraphale takes it as one, confirms, "I do, I do," and Crowley has never heard two sweeter syllables. He goes for Aziraphale’s mouth again, loses himself in it.

It’s not so much the taste that’s so sweet— Aziraphale’s mouth mostly tastes like mouth— but instead the knowledge of the taste, the fact of it, that sets Crowley alight.  _ I’ve kissed you, I’m kissing you, I might go on kissing you.  _ To think that, and have it be true. He needs nothing more. 

At some point Aziraphale gathers Crowley closer to him on the bed. And eventually he exerts the slightest bit of pressure, hands flexing and squeezing at Crowley’s waist and back, and it’s enough to remind Crowley of him lifting that package earlier, which is in turn enough to send a burst of heat to his cock, the world condensing to his body and the angel’s. He grinds up against Aziraphale, hardly even realizing he’s doing it, instinctively seeking friction like one of his plants seeking the sun.

“Darling,” Aziraphale says, his voice dropping to a low, growling register so rarely heard, usually only upon unwrapping a hard-won manuscript or being served a decadent dessert. “Yes, please…” 

Crowley jerks away, re-establishing a measure of inches between himself and the angel on the mattress. 

“Oh. You— don’t want to?” Aziraphale is trying hard not to look disappointed, and it’s not working. 

“No.  _ No. _ ” Crowley doesn’t know if he’s ever let out such an insistent denial. “It’s not that. I do. I swear. It’s just—” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve never. I mean. I haven’t. Urghhh, this isn’t— you  _ know. _ ” 

“I see,” says Aziraphale slowly. “Really, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” 

“Shut up, I  _ know _ it’s not. Did I say I was? C’mon,” Crowley huffs.

“You put this bed together so marvelously,” Aziraphale says, “and you’d never done that before. I don’t see why this should be any different.” 

“It  _ is  _ different. There were— diagrams!” Crowley is aware that he sounds whiny, but they’re lying in each other’s arms, he thinks he has the leeway at this point for a bit of stroppiness. 

“Well, here’s a diagram for you, my dear,” Aziraphale says, and makes an obscene gesture of the sort that sends Crowley face-first into the mattress, groaning. Aziraphale quits his filth to instead make warm circles on Crowley’s back until he lifts his head again, blinking. 

“I was watching your hands, you know,” says Aziraphale. “While you put this bed together. So nimble. So clever. I’ve always thought so.”

He sits up, easily maneuvering Crowley into a position atop him as he does so, and Crowley lets him, allowing the adoration to flow through him. It’s a hell-horse of a different scale pattern, hearing this sort of stuff come out of the angel’s mouth, rather than just feel it emanating from him in silent, shy pulses. 

“What do you want?” Crowley asks, a comfortable litany to fall back on. “What should I do?” 

“I’d like you to get yourself ready. And I’d like to watch, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, fuck. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.” 

Crowley doesn’t know why he’s never thought of this before. His fantasies have been pedestrian stuff, really. Holding hands. One of those hands, maybe, making their way to his cock. Perhaps a mouth on it. Maybe, if he was feeling particularly frisky, he imagined Aziraphale inside him, or vice versa, but that’s usually when it started to get a bit blurry and overwhelming and he’d retreat to safe waters, back to thoughts of gentle kisses, a hand on a thigh. 

But Aziraphale seems to have an infinite store of ideas. Apropos, in a way, that this area should be the one in which Crowley’s lack is made up for by an angel’s excess. They’ve always made up for each other, in all the ways that count. 

He snaps his clothing away, moves backwards on the bed, facing Aziraphale as he props himself up on one elbow. 

“Go on.” Aziraphale leans forward, his hand palm-up, a slick puddle suddenly pooled in it. Crowley obliges, dips his fingers in, the brush of them against Aziraphale’s wet palm as intimate as any kiss. 

Then, without much further ado, he works a finger inside, breaching the tight furl of his rim with slow deliberation. 

Aziraphale’s face is flushed, his gaze steady and desirous as Crowley explores himself.

“How does it feel?” 

“Nnh. Wow. Different—” 

“Different, good? Or—”

“Yes.  _ Ah—  _ definitely, definitely good.” 

“Try hooking your finger, like so.” 

Crowley’s eyes had been closed, against the sensory onslaught of the brightness of the room without his shades alongside the sensation of his own discovery, but the light has faded a bit more now, and he cracks them open to see what Aziraphale’s getting at. He gets more than he bargained for, in the glimpse. 

“Oh,  _ fuck,  _ yes, keep doing that,” he breathes— because with Aziraphale’s other hand, he has himself half-out of his own trousers now, working himself up to hardness. 

This parallel preparation, the very idea of it, is lighting Crowley up. Haven’t they been preparing themselves in parallel, this whole time? Doing the same jobs. Having the same doubts. Bidding on the same damn cottage.

Crowley does as Aziraphale suggested, curls his finger up inside, and is rewarded with a tremble that courses like a wave down his legs as he brushes up against that certain area. 

“I think you’re ready for another one, dear,” Aziraphale suggests after a moment, and Crowley quickly adds a second finger, the stretch of it at his rim shockingly pleasurable.

Aziraphale leaves off his cock for a moment to shuck his jacket and waistcoat. Crowley watches to see if any more articles will come off, not quite wanting them to, because he has the vague sense that catching even a glimpse of Aziraphale’s arse while stimulating himself would be the equivalent of flooring the gas pedal in the Bentley and immediately smashing into a light pole. It’s more than bad enough to be staring at his cock, not altogether long but thick as anything, and imagining it in place of his fingers, pressing up into him, hot and heavenly.

Thankfully Aziraphale goes no further in the disrobing process, and instead launches himself forward, ever-hungry, to straddle one of Crowley’s legs and kiss him again.

With his unoccupied hand Crowley reaches up, tugs Aziraphale’s tie loose, and then fumbles open the top button, revealing the pale stretch of the angel’s neck. Aziraphale leans down and lets Crowley tongue at it, tasting the angel’s sweat and warmth and lust and letting it all feed back into his body. His own untouched cock is stiff against his stomach, a few glistening drops falling slickly from the head.

Aziraphale lays his hand on Crowley’s, the one currently two fingers deep in his own hole, not guiding it but merely feeling the movement, a vicarious observer. 

“How is it?” Crowley can’t help asking, even as he can clearly see Aziraphale’s pleasure taking over his face, his eyes fluttering shut. “Doing it for you?” 

“My, I should think so,” murmurs Aziraphale. “How about another finger?” He gently handles Crowley’s ring finger, uncurling it as to suggest its entry.

“No, fuck that,” Crowley says roughly, “I’m ready  _ now.”  _

Crowley thinks this might draw a laugh or a smile or a reprimand from Aziraphale, at best, but he gets far more than he bargained for— Aziraphale lets out a blessed  _ moan,  _ full-on, dense with need.

At that, Crowley withdraws his fingers, which makes an extraordinarily lewd sound to compete with the angel’s, and gets up on his knees, giving himself the leverage necessary to shove Aziraphale’s trousers and pants halfway down his thighs with both hands. His cock bobs free, wretchedly pert and perfect, and Crowley’s mouth starts to water even as he drags his gaze away to look, only slightly panicked, into Aziraphale’s patient sea-glass eyes. 

The moment of truth. He thinks. He thinks some more. He still kind of wishes he had a diagram. There are too many possibilities, presenting themselves all at once. He kisses Aziraphale to give himself an extra moment to ponder. 

“How about, you, uh—” he begins, at length, and that’s really as far as he gets before he dissolves into speechlessness, trying to indicate solely through pantomime the specific manner in which he’d like to get on with it. 

Thankfully, Aziraphale is very clever, and more or less picks up on what he’s putting down. He removes his trousers the rest of the way, and tosses them carelessly to the floor, before sitting back against the headboard, and then hauling Crowley bodily over his lap. 

He supports Crowley effortlessly with two broad palms on his arse as Crowley lowers himself, inch by aching inch, onto the angel’s eager effort. Yeah, he probably could’ve stood to work at himself a few minutes longer, but honestly, who the fuck’s got the time? 

He lets loose a stuttered, gasping groan as Aziraphale slowly fills him up, the burn of it an incomparable sensation. 

Aziraphale’s hands tremble slightly at the sound. “Crowley, I don’t want to hurt you— my dear, are you—” 

“S’fine. Fucking fine. Oh, fuck, angel, more than fine, it’s  _ amazing,  _ a miracle, you’re incredible.”

“Good, good, yes, rather,” Aziraphale breathes out in delicate little huffs, his eyes heavy-lidded and slightly unfocused, and then as he bottoms out he—  _ squeaks,  _ yes, actually squeaks with pleasure. Crowley might go mad with how much he loves him— well, clearly he’s gone mad enough to  _ think _ it, what’s next, saying it out loud? ha!— but here, right, he’s getting ahead of himself. 

Right now the only thing that matters is Aziraphale inside him; wide, gorgeous,  _ divine.  _ Crowley takes an experimental rise and fall, pistoning gently, biting his lip with a sharp tooth to keep from making any noise that would stop him hearing Aziraphale’s reaction. 

“That’s it. Yes, oh,  _ yes,”  _ cries Aziraphale, giving Crowley leave to begin in earnest. As he moves, attempting some measure of grace, the exotic shock of Aziraphale’s cock gives way to reliable and intense waves of pleasure.

He can’t help imagining how this all must look from the outside. Cool as hell, actually, now that he considers it— a vast, empty room, whitewashed and hardwood-floored, lit up neon by the lurid pinks and reds of the sunset outside on the Downs, with nothing inside it but a white-lacquered bed, atop which one hereditary enemy is fucking another, with great passion if not necessarily great expertise on both parts.

And really, thinking about it now, the ten year plan doesn’t have to be completely off. He just has to shuffle things around. Surely the debut of the lingerie can now come before the romantic picnic, if he so chooses… the possibilities are infinite. 

So passes eons of breath and pressure, pangs of glorious yielding. 

And then Crowley realizes with a start that Aziraphale is saying something, murmuring beneath him, a desperate rush of words that he catches now, mid-stream: “Don’t stop, please, don’t stop, you’re doing  _ so _ well…” 

“M’not gonna stop, are you insane? I’ll give you more— I’ll give you it all— everything, everything—” 

He fucks himself with renewed intensity onto Aziraphale’s cock, wanting to make good on a promise, one he made to himself, a full millennia ago now, yet never fading from his mind.  _ You’ll never need to ask. You’ll never need to thank me. But I’ll do right by you. Always. _

Maybe that last word slips out, after who knows how long— a soft murmur of “ _ always”—  _ and who knows if Aziraphale even hears. Maybe he does, and that’s what makes him nearly launch Crowley off of him, arching up, perfectly cared-for nails digging ecstatic crescents into Crowley’s hips, gasping out as he comes. 

Crowley marvels at the fascinating feeling of it, the warm and wet shudder deep within him, and he slows his movements, coming to rest, letting his eyes drift closed. They jump open again when Aziraphale reaches forward and wraps a hand around Crowley’s cock, the touch of his fingers expert and all-consuming, overwhelming Crowley very nearly immediately. 

“Fuck— oh, holy  _ fuck—”  _

Aziraphale gives a generous twist, and that’s it: Crowley throws his head back; there’s a loud  _ whoosh _ and the sudden scent of fragrant smoke as his wings burst free from their extradimensional holding space, forming a dark canopy above the bed. Specks of downy onyx drift onto the sheet as Crowley is rocked by his climax, coming in hot gushes all over Aziraphale’s hand. 

He slumps forward, wings akimbo, hands tugging fists into Aziraphale’s rumpled shirt; Aziraphale is softening inside him but he doesn’t want him gone, not yet. 

Suddenly, he’s jerked out of his already-pleasant refractory stupor by an incredible sensation, like his entire essence is being dipped in gold and refracted through a glass of sugary soda. 

He twists his head to the side, seeking the source of it. And there’s Aziraphale, with one hand stroking gently through Crowley’s feathers, and the other one held up to admire, its glorious mess still gleaming on it, catching the last glints of the red sunset fading from the room.

“I don’t think ‘holy’ comes into it at all, actually,” he says. “Bit too sticky to be truly holy, I’ve always thought.” 

He vanishes the mess with a blink, and sets his now-clean hand to the same task as the other. 

“Yeah,” Crowley mumbles hoarsely. “They hate a mess, don’t they. Felt far too good… to be _unholy,_ though… what does that leave...” 

Aziraphale gives him a gentle nudge with one knee and Crowley crawls off him to lay prone at his side, one wing hanging off the bed, the other folded just so, to give Aziraphale continued access.

Crowley stays silent, trying not to steer his thoughts away from a certain subject. It’s easy at first, with so much else at hand to consider: the enthralling scent of their mutual exertion, redolent and substantial; the angel’s beatific, wordless beam as his fingers drift through Crowley’s secondaries. Not to mention the pressing questions of dinner, and of moving in together, and of redefining who they are to each other, for the second time in as many months.

But eventually Crowley just can’t help himself.

“Hang on,” he finally says. “Who sent the bed?”

“Hmm,” says Aziraphale thoughtfully, after a moment. “...Best not to speculate.”

“For once in my life,” Crowley sighs, “I actually think I agree with you on that.”

The sun has fully set now, outside the cottage; inside it’s dim and quiet, totally empty save for the bed and its occupants. 

Crowley lifts his wing overhead and makes it a small shelter, an iridescent ebony barrier. Below it he might be kissing Aziraphale, or perhaps Aziraphale might be whispering something, or maybe Crowley is running a hand through Aziraphale’s hair, finding it to be as soft and fine as morning light.

Imagine anything you like, really. It’s none of our business, now. Leave it to them: the empty cottage will be filled up, soon, with endless trinkets, tables, books, and kisses; fine china and curtains and pillows and paintings. 

But they will certainly never need another bed. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

1. With a small break in the mid-90s when Aziraphale became mistakenly convinced that Crowley was personally responsible for Waterstone’s.↩

2. “Antonio, you’re a great guy, but I really think you should stick to the business side of things,” Leo had said, giving Crowley’s sorry attempts at anatomical studies a once-over. ↩

3. Well, for a certain use of the word pocket. When he stows his keys in his pocket, what he’s actually doing is depositing them in a pocket dimension completely disconnected from the physical manifestation of his trousers, because he cannot abide by any disruption of the sleek lines of his silhouette.↩

4. Did you think I was going to tell you? Come on. Get back up there, you’re missing the good stuff. ↩

**Author's Note:**

> happy one year of the miniseries! 🥰 and what a YEAR IT'S BEEN 
> 
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe) and [tumblr!](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com)


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